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California

Employment Lawyer Network:
California

Joseph L. Beachboard (Editor)

California Employment Law

Joe.Beachboard@OgletreeDeakins.com
(213) 239-9800

Click for Full Bio

Joseph L. Beachboard is a nationally recognized expert on employment law issues who speaks regularly at SHRM and other HR events. He also is a regular contributor to several national and California publications. In 2000, Mr. Beachboard sold The Labor Letters, Inc., a publisher of monthly employment law journals that he founded to advise human resource professionals. He is a founding member and executive director of the Management Employment Law Roundtable, a national, invitation only, organization of management labor and employment lawyers.

Can we withhold pay if employees are late in completing and submitting time cards?

11/19/2010
Q. We have two employees who regularly fail to turn in their time cards on a timely basis. Can we hold off on paying them until they submit their time cards? Can we delay payment until the next pay period?

Are use-it-or-lose-it vacation policies legal?

11/19/2010
Q. My company has a “use it or lose it” vacation policy. Is it lawful for employees who have not taken their vacations at the end of the calendar year to lose them if we have given our employees advance notice of our policy?

What makes someone ineligible for unemployment?

11/19/2010
Q. We want to fire a bad worker, and we don’t want to take an unemployment comp hit. Under California law, when can a terminated worker be denied unemployment benefits?

Can our harassment policy penalize false claims?

11/19/2010
Q. Can we implement a provision on our sexual harassment policy that imposes discipline on employees who bring false harassment claims?

Car washes accused of dirty dealings on worker pay, breaks

11/19/2010
The state Office of the Attorney General has filed a lawsuit charging eight Southern California car washes with stiffing workers out of wages, failing to pay the minimum wage, reneging on overtime pay and denying legally mandated breaks.

Cal/OSHA fires back at federal OSHA critique

11/19/2010
The federal OSHA says California’s occupational safety and health program is deficient. The California Department of Industrial Relations (DIR) disagrees—although officials admit there’s always room for improvement.

LAPD learns OT is expensive, retaliation costs way more

11/19/2010
A federal jury has awarded approximately $4 million to a former Los Angeles Police Department officer who claimed the LAPD fired him in retaliation for testifying in a wage-and-hour case.

Contract talks stuck? Put health care on the table

11/19/2010
News to note if you work in a unionized workplace: Health benefits are still a legitimate bargaining chip. Members of the University Professional & Technical Employees Union recently agreed to shoulder more of the health insurance burden in exchange for better performance-based pay.

California Supreme Court upholds state furloughs

11/19/2010
For a while, there was some doubt that outgoing Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger could legally force unionized state employees to accept furloughs ordered to ease California’s budget crisis. Now the California Supreme Court has ruled that the furloughs were legal.

‘Disabled’ person recover? Demand proof he can’t work

11/19/2010
Some health conditions become less disabling because of better medicines or other factors. That means that an employee collecting disability payments under a company disability plan may in fact recover enough to warrant cutting off benefits.